The Codes of Gender

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

About Sut Jhally | Writer, Director, Editor &
Narrator
Sut Jhally is Professor of Communication at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst and Founder and Executive Director of the
Media Education Foundation. He is one of the world's leading
scholars looking at the role played by advertising and popular
culture in the processes of social control and identity
construction. The author of numerous books and articles on media
(including The Codes of Advertising and Enlightened
Racism) he is also an award-winning teacher (a recipient of the
Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Massachusetts,
where the student newspaper has also voted him "Best professor").
In addition, he has been awarded the Distinguished Outreach Award,
and was selected to deliver a Distinguished Faculty Lecture in
2007.

He is best known as the producer and director of a number of films
and videos (including Dreamworlds: Desire/Sex/Power in Music
Video; Tough Guise: Media, Violence and the Crisis of
Masculinity; and Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the
Selling of American Empire) that deal with issues ranging from
gender, sexuality and race to commercialism, violence and politics.
Born in Kenya, raised in England, educated in graduate studies in
Canada, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

"Completely engrossing... For a generally jaded viewer such as I,
perhaps the best measure of the effectiveness of this work is the
fact that it made me see things I hadn't seen before and made me
think in new ways about the ubiquitous images and messages that
inundate and inform everyday life."
- Gary Handman | Educational Media Reviews Online

"This provocative DVD provides a critical analysis of gender. Sut
Jhally bases this analysis on the work of Erving Goffman as
published in the book Gender Advertisement. Goffman's book
was published in 1988, but his analysis of gender in the media is
as relevant today as it was 23 years ago."
- lore m. dickey, PhD | Contemporary Sexuality

"The Codes of Gender will be of interest to all who question
the visual images of what is deemed natural and normal. The film is
well-made and presented, and it serves as a fitting tribute to
Goffman (who died in Philadelphia in 1982). His work was
underestimated when he was alive, but his contributions to 'the
codes of gender' are as equally valid today as they were thirty
years ago."
- Anna Hamling | Feminist Review

"Sut Jhally's The Codes of Gender: Identity and Performance in
Popular Culture offers an in-depth analysis of how gender is
portrayed and performed in advertising... Overall, The Codes of
Gender is a very enlightening film that will (a) raise viewers'
consciousness about the omnipresent codes of gender that, while
rooted in Western culture, are repeated in concentrated form
throughout media, (b) encourage viewers to question the seeming
normality of these codes, and (c) understand that these codes,
while presented as normal, are insidious, especially for women...
The film is likely to generate much discussion among students.
The Codes of Gender [will] introduce many constructs and
themes essential to discuss in gender and women's studies courses
(e.g., Women's Studies, Psychology of Women, Psychology of Gender,
and Sociology of Women). Showing [The Codes of Gender] at
the very beginning of such a course would provide an excellent
introduction to material that will be discussed in more detail
throughout the course, generate students' excitement and
anticipation for the material, spark discussion, show students how
the course topics are interconnected, and provide a visual
schematic framework they could use to gradually generate a more
complex understanding of the class material."
- Tracy L. Tylka & Rachel M. Calogero | Sex Roles: A Journal
of Research